


Adventures in Babysitting

by Origamidragons



Category: One Piece
Genre: Babysitting, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon, Selectively Mute Character, Sign Language, look until oda gives me a timeline for dragon you cant prove he DIDNT babysit rocinante
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons
Summary: “Ah, there you are!” Garp said brightly. “Take this, will you?”And he shoved achildinto Dragon’s arms.Dragon cursed, hurriedly readjusted his grip so as not to dump the poor kid on the floor, and glanced up his father.“This?” he echoed, and then, after a quick glance down at shaggy blonde hair and arms patterned with faint scars, “…Isn’t thisSengoku’skid?”(Dragon babysits. He's surprisingly good at it.)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 195





	Adventures in Babysitting

_**“OI, DRAGON!”** _

Garp’s voice echoed down the halls of marine headquarters, and Dragon immediately started mentally packing up any hopes he’d had of a quiet day. Maybe if he found an unused office or someplace else to lay low until his father lost interest or got distracted...

He didn’t quite manage it on time; he rounded a corner, headed for one of the ladders that led up to the roof, and nearly ran smack into the very man he’d been hoping to avoid.

“Ah, there you are!” Garp said brightly. “Take this, will you?”

And he shoved a _child_ into Dragon’s arms.

Dragon cursed, hurriedly readjusted his grip so as not to dump the poor kid on the floor, and glanced up his father.

“ _This_?” he echoed, and then, after a quick glance down at shaggy blonde hair and arms patterned with faint scars, “…Isn’t this _Sengoku’s_ kid?”

He’d seen the kid in passing once or twice since Sengoku had brought him back to Headquarters, usually trailing close in Sengoku’s footsteps, quiet and a little jumpy. He hadn’t really anticipated that _this_ would be how he wound up actually meeting him.

“Yup!” Garp laughed, reached down to scrub a rough hand through the kid’s hair. “This is Roci! Senny asked me to look after him for the day since he’s got to do inspections, but I just heard Roger was sighted in Paradise and I have to go chase the bastard down. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I don’t know-“

“Great!” Garp said. “He’s a good kid, doesn’t really talk, shouldn’t give you any trouble. Thanks again!”

And then he was gone, barreling back down the hall, leaving Dragon no room to get a word in edgewise. Dragon watched until he disappeared around the corner, footsteps quickly fading, then sighed and looked at the kid- Roci- who was giving him an uncertain, wide-eyed look from behind his messy bangs.

“Hi,” he said, and sighed. “I’m Dragon. Sorry about him. I’m going to set you down now, okay?”

Roci nodded, and Dragon crouched down to lower him to the floor.

“How old are you?” he asked, leaning back against the wall.

Roci frowned for a moment, then held up six fingers.

“Six, huh? Can you read yet?”

A nod.

“That’s good. My dad mentioned you don’t really talk. Want me to find some paper to write on?”

A hesitation, and then another nod.

“Alright, follow me,” Dragon said, pushing himself to his feet and setting off down the hall. Roci fell into step beside him, hurrying a little to keep up, and Dragon took the opportunity to take a better look at him. His gait was a little jagged and uneven, not pronounced enough to be a limp but maybe a sign of some old injury, and the scars he’d noticed before were bright under HQ’s fluorescent lighting, thin lines and bigger circles all up and down narrow arms.

He didn’t know where Sengoku had found the kid, just that he’d come back with him after some mission somewhere in North Blue. He sure wasn’t about to _ask_. Scars like that didn’t come from nowhere, and six year old kids didn’t just not talk without _some_ reason.

Roci stumbled, tripping spectacularly over what looked like nothing at all, and Dragon stopped in his tracks, turning and bending down.

“You okay?” he asked, offering the kid a hand to help him up. Roci took it, picked himself up, and nearly tripped over his own ankles again while doing so, his hand tightening around Dragon’s to keep from smacking his face into the floor again.

Dragon sighed, readjusted his hand to get a better grip, and tugged the kid to his feet. “You’re kind of clumsy, huh?”

Roci flushed a little and nodded, gaze fixed on the ground.

“...You can keep holding my hand? If that makes it easier?” Dragon offered after a moment.

Roci didn’t say anything- of course- but his hand tightened just a little more in Dragon’s, and the next time he tripped, Dragon was able to keep him on his feet.

Dragon led them into the first office he came across, and managed to find a notepad and a pen after emptying most of the contents of someone’s desk onto the floor. He passed them down to Roci, who immediately scribbled something down, then held the notebook out.

 _Sorry_ , it said, in a childish, slightly uneven hand. No elaboration, but Dragon didn’t have to think hard to guess what he was referring to.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dragon said, waving a hand. “Better I’m looking after you than my dad, honestly. When I was your age he had me running drills with his men, and it was _terrible_.”

He dropped down into the unoccupied desk chair, propped his feet up on the desk. “So how’re you liking HQ so far?” he asked. “You’ve been here for a month or so now, right?”

Roci nodded, settling down with his back against the desk drawers at Dragon’s side. _I like it_ , he wrote. _It’s_

A pause, while he tapped the pen against the notepad a few times, then finished, _clean_.

“Ha, yeah, I guess it is,” Dragon said. “The marines are pretty big on that. Order above all, and all that sh- stuff.”

Roci nodded, and after another pause: _I want to be a marine_.

“Yeah? You considered getting a haircut?” Dragon asked idly, considering the kid’s shaggy mess of hair. “Marines usually keep it short.”

Roci shook his head immediately, so hard it was almost violent. A pause, then he scribbled something else down in his notebook.

_Yours is long?_

Dragon snorted. “Yeah, well. I’m not gonna be a marine, so.”

Roci blinked and tilted his head, the _why?_ clear and unspoken. Dragon frowned and tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to explain in terms a child would understand.

“There’s... bad things in the world,” he said after a moment. An extreme oversimplification, to be sure, but one that was unavoidable. He might be tactless sometimes- often- but he wasn’t about to give a six-year-old a crash course in the horrors of slavery and genocide. “I’m going to try and fix them, and if I want to do that, I can’t be a marine.”

Roci was giving him a curious look from behind his bangs. “Don’t tell my dad I said that,” Dragon added after a moment. “He’d probably get on my case for ‘indoctrination.’” The kid just looked confused at that, and Dragon waved a hand. “Never mind.”

Roci was still giving him that curious, uncertain kind of look, and Dragon tipped his head. “What is it?”

Roci scribbled something in his notebook, then turned it around. _Garp-san is your dad._

Dragon nodded. “That’s right.”

A pause, and then, with another quick scribble: _Monkey D. Dragon?_

Dragon raised an eyebrow. “Yes, that’s my name,” he allowed. “Why?”

 _You’re nice_.

“Not really,” Dragon said, and almost laughed out loud at the openly doubtful look that won him.

He _wasn’t_ nice, really, and he knew the path he was planning on heading down didn’t leave much room for softness anyways, but- he did like kids, and they deserved to be treated with at least a little gentleness, especially kids who the world obviously had been cruel to.

“You know any sign language?” he asked curiously, and Roci brightened a little.

 _I’m learning_ , he wrote. _Sengoku-san is teaching me_.

He signed something with quick movements, then wrote, _My name_. _R-O-C-I._

“Can you show me one more time? Slower?” Dragon asked, and when Roci ran through the gestures again, he copied him, a little clumsily, and repeated it a few times until he felt he had it down.

Roci _lit up_ , smiling big and toothy for the first time since Dragon had met him, and it almost felt like the room got a little brighter.

“How would you do my name?” Dragon asked.

Roci frowned for a moment, clearly thinking, then signed another short chain of gestures, slow enough that Dragon could follow along. Dragon copied him- D-R-A-G-O-N- and Roci nodded enthusiastically.

A smile tugged at Dragon’s lips, and he glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was past lunchtime, and he realized all of a sudden he was starving.

“You want to go rob the kitchens?” he asked, standing and absently offering Roci his hand again. Roci nodded, bouncing to his feet and only stumbling a little, and took it.

* * *

Sengoku found them several hours later, sitting on the roof of Marine HQ, Dragon still snacking on what was left of their stolen food cart. Roci’s head jerked up from where it had been bent over his notepad, and he waved excitedly at his adoptive father. Sengoku returned the wave, a reluctant smile tugging on his lips before he turned his attention to his son’s erstwhile babysitter. “Dragon,” he said, half-sighing.

“Sengoku,” Dragon replied without looking up, sounding absolutely unimpressed. “Thought you were doing inspections today?”

“I cut them off early when I heard Garp had left to try and chase down Roger again,” Sengoku said with a grimace. “I was worried he might’ve been reckless enough to actually take Rocinante _with_ him.”

Dragon snorted. “He probably would’ve been, if he hadn’t run into me first.”

Sengoku sighed, pressing a hand to his temples and closing his eyes for a moment. “Thank you. Really.”

Dragon waved it off. “It was no trouble,” he said. “Roci’s a good kid. Wouldn’t mind looking after him again sometime.”

“I’ll take you up on that, if you’re serious,” Sengoku said, absently reaching down to ruffle Roci’s hair. “I’d much rather have you watching him than Garp.”

“I’m always serious.”

“Except when it comes to respecting authority figures.”

“Give me a reason to respect you and I will,” Dragon said impassively. “I like Roci, though. Like I said, he’s a good kid.”

“He really is,” Sengoku agreed, softening slightly, glancing down at Roci, who smiled up at him. “I’ll leave you be, then. Come on, Roci.”

Dragon nodded, signed something at Roci. Sengoku wasn’t paying enough attention to catch it, but whatever it was, it made Roci visibly brighten, face lighting up with a grin. And-

Well. Sengoku might have had a truly awful day, but at least he’d gotten a reliable babysitter out of the deal, so he supposed it balanced out. Garp’s spitfire son wouldn’t have been his first choice by a long shot, but he had to admit the boy was at least measurably more reliable and better with children than his father was, and the two seemed to really get along.

And anything that got Roci smiling like that was a win in his books, anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays, folks!! here's a little mess of headcanon and fluff that i will cling stubbornly to until and unless its disproven outright. 
> 
> this fic pretty heavily incorporates my headcanon that cora was genuinely mute for awhile as a kid due to trauma. additionally i do think dragon is probably at least decent with kids, especially traumatized ones, given sabo and koala, hence his characterization here. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!


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